


Live and Let Die

by god_is_undead, idiotsammich (god_is_undead)



Category: Better Call Saul (TV), Breaking Bad
Genre: Blackmail, Crack Treated Seriously, Dimension Travel, Howard deserves none of this, Howard is still reeling, I do what I want, I have a soft spot for Howard Hamlin okay, I'm Bad At Summaries, I'm Bad At Tagging, In the meantime, No Romance, No Smut, Waaaaaaaayyyyyy the fuck down the line, What Have I Done, and blackmailing him, and he didn't deserve any of that either, and six has yet to come out, basically this is a very 'start small, eating his food, every bad fanfiction stereotype, i wrote this just at the end of season 5, mustard seed the shit out of this ploy, nevertheless the universe is hellbent on fucking with him, oh well, probably has a degree of PTSD, seriously though what the fuck is this, so it probably won't be canon in 2021 or so, warning, which is why he now has a strange woman sleeping in his guest bedroom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23808559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/god_is_undead/pseuds/god_is_undead, https://archiveofourown.org/users/god_is_undead/pseuds/idiotsammich
Summary: Begins in summer of 2005, after Jimmy fully becomes Saul Goodman, but before the events of Breaking Bad.Howard didn't think things could get any worse, but when a strange woman wanders in out of the blue, disrupting the delicate balance of his life in recovery, he is dragged back into more drama, that yet again, he didn't ask for.She's eccentric, she's rude, she's opinionated, and he's pretty sure this is all just a very abstract scheme. Somehow.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

Howard’s first thought was to wonder how she dressed like… _that_ in public. His next: why did his secretary let a strange woman into his office? HHM might no longer have the same sterling prestige it once did before Jimmy and Kim took it to the cleaners, but he did insist upon maintaining standards.

She stood up as he strode inside and shook his hand. She had a firm grip, he noted, but that and her smile were offset by the presence of gold piercings glittering in three places in her nose, another vertically through her lower lip, and several lining the curves of her ears. He imagined more were obscured by her silver hair, which was cut in a neat, angled bob. She wore an incongruously ornate silk dress in cream and green, and boots laced up to her knees. She also had tattoos on her forearms, though again, since she was otherwise covered up to the chin, he imagined not all of them were on display.

In short: not someone he would ordinarily or willingly have welcomed into his office. All in all, she looked more like one of Jimmy’s scummy confederates. Howard needed to have a firm talk with his secretary.

“Hello Mr. Hamlin,” she said, dropping her hand.

“Howard, please,” he said, willing to humor this situation if only to nurse it along to a point he could make it disappear. He went around the desk and gestured to the chair she had risen from. “Sit down. Janine said that you had something you wished to speak with me about? Something personal?”

She hesitated as she sat again, an almost uncertain smile crossing her lips that did not reach her eyes. The color of her hair must not have been natural, since her eyebrows were dark and thick. Howard was no expert on women’s fashion, but his niece in Raleigh, who liked to think she was, complained bitterly that she had been born with eyebrows that she was forced to pluck into high, thin arches. This woman, if she was any more than her mid-20's at all, looked completely out of place from head to toe, like someone out of a movie—like _Blade Runner_ , or something.

She crossed her ankles and sat very straight, hands in her lap. Such a posture was more often the habit of older women of a certain status, and again, Howard noted how unpleasantly incongruous this was. It left him uncertain, and with strangers in his office he did not like feeling uncertain. Certainly not now.

“I know about what happened with Lalo and Jimmy McGill. And you, and Kim Wexler. Why Kim is in jail, why you almost got disbarred, why you almost died—the whole nine yards. I’m aware of your actions as well, Mr. Hamlin. Do I need to go into detail? Because I will.”

His heart dropped into his stomach, but Howard was much too good a lawyer to give up the ghost immediately.

“I’m not sure I know what you’re—”

“I can bring physical proof, if you like: a complete recounting of events—which you will only hear over the phone, and then I will go straight to the FBI anonymous tip line,” she went on, calmly, but with a chilly firmness made somewhat unsettling by the little smile that threatened to peel back into an animal grin. Her flat eyes never left his. She wore makeup heavily around them, sharp cat’s eye liner that made her look foxlike. “I have names. Or we can find a solution here and now.”

“What is this,” he demanded, feeling like he no longer had any air in his lungs. His heart pounded, sick. “What do you want? Who are you?”

“Who I _am_ is not important.”

“Are you working for Jimmy?” he spat. “For Kim Wexler? Is this some elaborate attempt at extortion? What does he want? Money? He’s not making enough of it off helping drug dealers and murderers?” Howard had lost everything and only just barely recovered, let alone started rebuilding the reputation of the firm. The last he had heard, Jimmy was practicing law out of a strip mall and paying for grossly magniloquent commercials that only ran late at night.

She stared at him, apparently taken aback.

“I’m not working for anyone but myself.”

“Then what is it _you_ want,” he demanded, staring at her as if he wished he could set her on fire by that alone. What filth was it that had crawled across his doorstep now? He braced himself for anything: dizzying amounts of money, some perverse misapplication of the law…

“In exchange for neither going to the FBI, nor ruining your life—” He snorted, and she blinked as if the response surprised her a little, “I assume you have a guest bedroom.”

Surely, he hadn’t heard her right. “ _Excuse_ _me?_ ”

“I have nowhere to go in Albuquerque,” she said. “And I’m sure you have a guest bedroom. I need a room indefinitely, and you are going to provide that room. That is what I want: a place to live indefinitely, rent-free.”

“You walked in here and blackmailed me in order to gain access to my guest bedroom,” he asked, carefully, heatedly. It didn’t seem real—it felt absurd. Two minutes ago, he had been contemplating whether or not he wanted a cobb salad for lunch. “Is this some kind of sick joke?”

“I wish it were.”

Would that he had never heard the name McGill. Chuck had known Jimmy best, in the end, and for so long Howard had been such a damn naïve fool. Howard had gone to bat for Jimmy more times than he wanted to remember, but it didn’t matter in the end, did it?

And Kim; well. She was a talented lawyer but there was no accounting for taste, and Jimmy ruined her, too.

“If you’re going to be living at my house, I would like to know your name.”

She tilted her head slightly. “Mina. Mina Scott. And don’t worry, I’m housebroken.”

“I’m very pleased to hear it,” he told her, faking every last bit of his smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah. Um. This is going to be pretty much my take on some stupid shit in fanfiction.
> 
> And to top the cherry off, if you're curious to know what dress I was thinking of, something very similar to this: https://66.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mefk8tX3Xy1rmyhexo1_400.jpg Not fond of the sleeves though, and the way the skirt is done is weird.
> 
> I mean honestly, I'm a big believer in "life is short, wear the fun clothes" so like...lol.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Howard's unwanted guest arrives at his house.

Howard felt ridiculous freshening up the guest bedroom and fluffing pillows, but he was compelled to: he had _always_ been a thorough person, very aware of how he presented himself, always on display.

So there he was, making sure there were clean, fluffy towels in the bathroom and enough soap in the dispenser for the lunatic who had blackmailed him into living at his house. Howard had gotten home fifteen minutes ago and had half expected to find Mina Scott sitting on his own sofa, waiting for him, but the house was empty. True, she had told him she wouldn’t be there until later that evening, but he just wasn’t sure. She had refused a ride or a taxi to his Sandia Heights home, instead insisting that she would find her own way, and vanished back into the New Mexico afternoon.

Once Howard was satisfied that no reasonable person would have complaints about their plundered accommodations, he went downstairs to make himself a drink. He didn’t drink frequently but kept some wine for guests. Maybe he ought to hide it, just in case. He decided to lock the cabinet and simply not mention that it was there.

His house was otherwise clean enough to receive guests; Mabel had come yesterday so it was still very neat, all the surfaces dusted until they gleamed.

Howard went into his home office but left the door open, so he could hear the doorbell when it rang. Most nights, even when he made it back home before the sun went down, were spent looking at cases and administration issues until midnight. He had so few staff left that most of the legwork was now his to accomplish, and Howard was beginning to suspect just how good he'd had it. When Howard had graduated from law school, his father had given him a job at HHM, then HM of course, and there had never been any question that he would become a partner someday, but even while so new, he'd had an army of paralegals and administrative staff and assistants to free up his time.

He was deep into budgeting and sweating over payroll when he heard the chime. Howard briefly glanced at the clock on the wall and realized with some surprise that in no time at all, three hours had passed. It was nine fifteen.

The foyer just inside the front door was dark, and for a moment he could see her standing behind the textured glass under the porch lights, distorted, her whitish hair the most prominent visible feature. It practically glowed. When he turned on the foyer light she was no longer quite so easy to see, but she did seem to turn her head. He opened the door.

She stood staring up at him, eyebrows raised, mouth in a straight line.

“This is a nice neighborhood,” she remarked. “Everyone's driving Beamers or Audis.”

“Come in, Miss Scott,” he said, standing aside and already feeling nettled.

“Thank you,” she replied, and did just that. She had two suitcases with her, one slung over her shoulder and the other, a rolling steel box, trundling along at her heels.

“I can take that for you,” he said, reaching for the bag on her shoulder.

“Oh, no; it’s fine.”

“I insist,” he said flatly, faking that smile, too. She didn’t get to blackmail him and then suggest she was anything but a rotten, grasping criminal. In New Mexico, blackmail was a third-degree felony, punishable by up to three years in prison or a 5,000 file. He was going along with this solely because he couldn’t see a way out, or else he might very well lose everything—again, and worse, this time. He was much closer to the bottom now.

She followed him upstairs to the guest bedroom and came inside, almost silent on the carpeted floor.

“The bathroom is through there.” He kind of hoped she slipped and broke her neck in the shower.

“Did you, like, clear out a Pottery Barn? I swear to god, if you have a sex dungeon, you should just tell me now. I’ll be much less creeped out. Guy like you, wound up so fucking tight, you’ve either got a sex dungeon or you're Ed Gein with a murder basement, and I am really hoping for the sex dungeon.”

“Well,” he said, with a biting dislike, holding his tongue if only to avoid dignifying such inappropriate commentary, “You’ll have to forgive me: I’m not sure what _you_ consider to be tasteful decoration.”

She spun around and stared at him.

“You are a lot sassier than I thought you’d be.”

“I apologize for the disappointment.”

“Are you okay?”

“You mean aside from having been forced, by means of threatening me, to provide room and board for a perfect stranger?”

“Yeah,” she said, after a second, as if it didn't really bother her at all. “Besides all that.”

“I am very well, thank you for asking.” He went to sleep at night anxious and got up uncertain, and then spent the day drinking coffee. He laid awake at night trying to think about only half of what he had to get done tomorrow, because it was still very possible for him to lose his house and what little he had retained.

Howard wasn’t going to tell her about _any_ of it. 

She stared at Howard for a long several seconds as he stubbornly tried to think of some addendum to _I'm fine, thank you for asking_ that imparted how little he thought of her inquiry, then shrugged.

“Do you have anything to eat?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Howard and his unwanted guest interact at his home

“You have a pool,” she said, gazing past the sliding glass back door with admiration. “That’s nice. You have a lovely house, it’s a shame it’s practically a catalog ad. Didn’t know what to expect, though, so I can’t say I’m surprised.”

Was that a compliment or a true insult? Difficult to say. Howard couldn’t stand that she was being polite (mostly) about this. It felt sleazy—like she was trying to butter him up. Like Jimmy. Sort of like how Kim Wexler had become, two-faced and twisted, 

The fact of the matter was, Mina Scott had blackmailed him into ill-gotten gains. There was no room to be friendly now.

“I assume you plan on raiding my cabinets for all your meals?”

“Yeah,” she replied, dragging her eyes from the pool long enough to look at him critically. “That’s the plan. God, don’t tell me you’re a health food nut. Health food right now tastes like cardboard. Wasn't shit for vegans right now, not that I'm vegan or anything.”

“Do you have anything in particular that you prefer to eat? Any allergies?” Why did he have to be thinking about this? Howard _hated_ that he was apparently like... _this_. Hated that part of himself very much, in that moment.

“No food allergies,” she told him. “But I don’t like sugary stuff. Messes with my stomach. And I have to be careful eating bread.”

“What is it you prefer to eat?”

“Cheese, any kind of meat…it’s two thousand…mid-aughts-ish, isn’t it?” She seemed to think a minute. “Not much in the way of marketed keto-y stuff yet but for the most part that’ll get you pretty close…tell you what, I’ll make you a list.”

Howard grit his teeth. She kept saying bizarre things, like somehow she was looking _back_ on Now, but he pushed that aside. She was giving him a shopping list?

“Is there anything else I can do to make your stay more comfortable?” He didn't mean it. At all. 

“Yeah. A PS3 and a shitload of games for it. Or…wait, it might not be out yet. My memory's a bit...I’d have to look. No, it's 2, now. A PS2 and some games.”

“I do not know what you are talking about,” he told her, pointedly. “What is a Pee-Ess-Three?”

“It's a video game console,” she said. “Tell you what, just get me an N64 and _Ocarina of Time_ for now, that’s definitely out. Jesus, _Devil May Cry 3_ isn’t going to be out for…wait, when is that coming out? Has it come out already?"

He did not understand any of that any better (did she expect him to know whether devils could cry?), but he did understand, and disdain, of _video games_. She blackmailed him so she could sit on his couch, eat his food, and do nothing while playing _video games?_ “Anything else?” Was she unaware of how angry he was, or did she simply not care?

“Do you have a workout room?”

“…Yes.”

*

She had set up the Playstation 2 and the Nintendo 64 underneath the television and left the cords in disarray. Howard’s eye twitched.

This was not what he wanted to come home to after a long day of work and worrying about what she was getting up to in his absence.

He went in search of his so-called guest, angry and growing angrier, until eventually he found her on the back porch with a glass of ice water and one of his books. Some book about WWII he had never read but whose impressive width had occupied space on his bookshelf of similar cases since the early 90's. He wasn’t quiet when he approached, or at least he made no attempt to be, but she almost jumped out of her skin when he spoke.

“I can only hope you have not bent the pages to mark your place, Miss Scott.”

“Jesus!” she exclaimed. “When did you get home?”

“Just now,” he told her. “I will not prevent you from playing your video games in the living room, but I would ask that you clean up after you finish with them.”

“Excuse you, I did clean up,” she retorted.

“The cords are everywhere,” he replied crisply.

“They _are_ cleaned up. Chill out.”

Chill out? _Chill out?_ Howard was not a violent man at all. He’d never struck anyone in anger in his life. When the thought crossed his mind to slap her, he recoiled from it in horror but still felt what brought it on clear as a bell.

“I don't know how you live, wherever it is you're from, but my home is not a pigsty!”

“Tell you what, asshole,” she hissed. “As far as I’m concerned, everything is fine. But why don’t you go back in there and put it the way you think it should be put up, and in the future, I will do my best to make it look like that. Okay? Will you fuck off now, Herr Hitler? Is that a workable compromise for you?”

He wanted to drag her inside by the ear and force her to rework the cords until they were to his liking herself. He’d never been spoken to so disrespectfully in his life, but to get her to do what he wanted he might actually have had to lay hands on her (hell, he would have to call the police for that), and he wasn’t that kind of person. Howard reined in his temper and went back inside.

The controllers and their cords were piled on top of the consoles but the cords themselves were an absolute mess, ruining what was otherwise an orderly room.

He would never have wasted his money on his own initiative, but Mina wrinkled her nose and sneered at him when he suggested, very honestly, that she should have been too old for things like this. Apparently—he wasn’t sure he believed this, since she refused to produce any kind of identification—she was in her thirties. She did not look, behave, or dress as though she were, however.

She wandered back inside a little later.

“Seriously,” she said, looking at the consoles, with their neatly packaged cords, sitting waiting to be used again, “What’s your pucker factor at these days?”

“ _Pucker factor?_ ”

“I’m asking how stressed out you are.”

Enough of this.

“I do not see why I should divulge personal information or discuss personal topics with a woman who has blackmailed me into room and board.”

She stared at him for a long minute.

“How long have you been sitting on that one?” she said. “You know, if not to me, if you don’t have anyone to talk to, then you should talk to a therapist.”

“I will take that under advisement,” he said, too polite.

There was a beat of silence.

“He destroyed you, didn’t he,” Mina said. “He and Kim. When they destroyed HHM. You at least used to have manners.”

_Used to have_ —

“Chuck knew what Jimmy was.” He didn’t _mean_ to say it, snarl it rather, to a stranger. He was so angry, though. She had some nerve to talk as if she knew him. 

“ _That_ was a self-fulfilling prophesy,” Mina retorted. “Chuck was brilliant, but Chuck was a dick. He had his issues, and he made manifest the worst of his presumptions. So did Jimmy. They threw each other out of orbit like binary stars."

Who was this woman? How on earth could she claim to have such insight? He didn't know her, he had never heard of a Mina Scott once before she blew in. Howard racked his brain in vain, but the best he could come up with was that it was now almost certain this had something to do with Jimmy. It was the only rational explanation, but he couldn't figure out any other way to understand what all this gained anyone.

She rolled her eyes.

"I'll try and make sure the stupid cords look like that when I'm done playing. Alright?"


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Howard gets his spine back yay

Mina coughed, sitting back with an incredulous wrinkle in her nose that rapidly darkened.

Howard hadn’t expected much when she offered to cook dinner a week into her residence at his house—in her words, he had ‘a lot of nerve when all you eat is takeout and I’m bored’—but he had to admit Mina had done well: a spicy pot roast that he could eat with a spoon, garlic mashed potatoes (that were also spicy?), creamed spinach (he couldn't tell if it was spicy but he had his suspicions), a very plain salad that wasn't much more than a bowl of lettuce with lemon juice and pine nuts sprinkled on top, and some kind of alcoholic, orange-ginger whipped cream for dessert. A little irritated by his own surprise given that his expectations had been somewhat closer to a call from the fire department, he asked to know why everything other than the salad was spicy (and on another note, it was just two of them—why had she cooked a banquet?). It occurred to Howard that it sounded a little rude, but by the time it occurred to him to mitigate the damage, she opened her mouth.

“Has anyone ever told you to keep your mouth shut if you can’t think of anything nice to say?”

“I’m only being honest.” He wasn’t about to apologize; it was just a question. 

“ _Honest?_ Yeah that’s what people say when they’ve never had any real consequences for running their mouth. If you don’t like my cooking, Mr. Hamlin, there are better ways of saying that. And do you seriously not know what eating leftovers is?”

“I beg your pardon,” he said, unamused. “I have always been held accountable for my actions—”

“I bet someone held your hand and assured you it wasn’t your fault that you got punched in the face instead of told you to act differently so you wouldn’t get punched in the face, huh?”

“Why would it be my fault if _I_ were punched in the face?” She was clearly making allusions. The only thing, though, that he could think of which she might be making a reference to was what had happened with Jimmy and Kim.

“Have you ever thought about changing your behavior so you don’t get punched in the face?”

Howard stared at her, mortified. “Are you suggesting that it was my fault that Kim chose to destroy my career?”

Her eyes focused and she sat up a little. “Huh? I didn’t mentio—”

“I am not responsible for the decisions made by other people,” he said firmly.

“You’re apparently not responsible for the way you act towards other people having any bearing on what they feel or how they act towards you, either.” She grabbed her glass of wine and took a heavy drink.

“I would be more apt to use such a description for _you_.”

She froze and looked up at him, steadily. Howard stared into her eyes; _no_ , he thought with grim surprise. _She looks her age, but only in her eyes_. Was it an act, then? Her antics? No; it was definitely the same woman, to suggest otherwise was ridiculous. He had wondered now and then if she were capable of being serious: he had his answer.

“Oh, no, Mr. Hamlin. I know you don’t like me. I know what I've done, and I've done it over every complaint of yours thus far, although I would go so far as to suspect you would pass judgment just based on my appearance if we had never spoken at all, so I can't take full responsibility for what you say. I’m not blind and I’m not stupid, I’ve seen how you look at me, and I hear it in your voice even when you don't say it out loud. I’m very aware you’re not happy right now, I know that you want me gone, I know you may go to lengths to make that happen, and above all I know that blackmail is a dangerous tool that can blow up in my face. I wouldn’t have used it had I had any other option.”

Any other option?

“Why was it necessary?”

“I was completely honest: I needed somewhere to stay, and your home—even if it is the lowest level of bourgeoisie Hell money can buy—is still _safe_. I know you're not a dishonest or a cruel person. Well—to be more specific, you are, but it's a more banal cruelty than violence. People like you believe their cruelty is not cruel because it's bloodless for you. It operates according to rules that work for _you_ and don't inconvenience _you_ , which _you_ already agree should be followed. What those rules _are_ makes you safe.

"Believe me when I say that feeling safe right now is a priority. You might want to get rid of me, but murdering me and dumping my body in the desert would not be how you accomplished that. You think yourself a much better person than that, even if it’s all the same in the end.”

Howard held his temper, but barely. It was just so appalling: how dare she pass personal judgment on him like this, in his own home, as if she knew him? Who was _she?_ So far, just a jumped-up leech. She was saying things she had no right to say, that were _wrong_ (cruel? Him?), but his attention settled on what she had said at the very end. Mina was a lot of things, including long-winded, but there was something there, in what she had said, that was closer to the marrow than anything else she had said so far.

The wind went out of his temper immediately and his mind started turning her words over, trying to squeeze a motive out of that scant evidence.

“You need to feel safe? Why, are you in danger?” He found himself…not quite that surprised, somehow. It all sounded very film noir to him, but she had walked into his office out of the blue and sat down like this was an absurd Maltese Falcon.

She laughed.

“No. No one is coming after me. No one knows that I’m here. I’m not hiding from anyone. I'm not in danger, and neither are you. And I don’t plan to stay indefinitely, just in case you’re worried about that or something. I’m just here for now, and your house is someplace to be, here.”

She took another drink of wine before grimacing and simply downing the rest, and pushed away from the table. She took her empty plate with her.

**

This was Howard's last ditch option: he had tried twice, to no avail. He dialed his house a third time.

He was just then deciding which of his employees to send when she finally picked up.

“Hamlin residence, this is Mina speaking.”

Howard had never called her on the phone before, so the actual, cheerful _politeness_ in her tone shocked him silent for a few seconds.

“Hello? Hell- _ooo_ …alright, you have five seconds _—_ ”

“It’s a relief to know you can show manners when you feel like it."

Her scoff was waspish and immediate, and her tone chilled.

“Don’t get too excited. This is far enough before people stopped having landlines I figured maybe somebody important was calling.”

“Before…?”

 _Focus_.

“This better be good,” she warned him. “Vergil’s wiping the floor with my face.”

_Is she reading Virgil in the original or something?_

“I need some papers from my home office.” He hadn't counted on them being this important.

“And that’s my problem how?”

“I am asking you to please bring them to me. I need to go over some of the documents again before I write this deposition.”

“Wait, you’re doing your own document review?” He hated that he could hear the smug grin in her voice. “Well, fine. It’ll take me a couple of hours to walk there, but—”

“I need them immediately; as soon as possible,” he amended.

“So call me a taxi.”

“Just drive.” Come to think of it, he didn't know if she could.

“I don’t have a car here. And I’m not driving that Beamer. Perfect opportunity for you to call the cops and report it’s been stolen.”

Actually, it hadn't crossed his mind.

“I give you my permission to drive my car.”

“Would that hold up in court? Serious answers only.”

“I _need_ these documents, Miss Scott. I wouldn’t call if it weren’t absolutely necessary.”

“But how do I know you're telling the truth?”

“Or would you prefer I call the police and report an intruder in my house?”

There was a pause. Howard was beyond caring. He knew something about her now: there was _something_ unpleasant which made her desperate (or reckless) enough to blackmail a defense lawyer into hospitality. Blackmail was usually a felony in New Mexico and carried a jail sentence of a year or more, and maybe she wasn't aware of that, but it didn't change that she was aware of and capable of her own fear. She had admitted it, and now it could be used against her.

“Well, I’ll just have to tell _them_ —”

This was his livelihood and it had already fallen apart once. “Tell them whatever you like, Miss Scott. You’re the one who will have to explain why you're in my house, and the first thing I will tell them is that you've been blackmailing me using a phony story. Who do you think they're going to believe?"

Silence stretched heavily between them.

"I’ll assume you know how to get here—the keys are in the drawer by the sink.”

He hung up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, Howard. Vergil, with an E. Has a penchant for melodrama and phallic structures that pop up out of nowhere. 
> 
> I have a thing for DMC but have never been able to write fic for it. *shrugs* If you're really really paying attention though, you can date just about when this fic takes place.
> 
> Ps I've been cooking a lot can you tell lmao


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Howard gets his paperwork and more trouble

Kevin shouldered through the door and plunked a cardboard box full of paperwork down on Howard’s desk. Howard felt a brief swell of relief, seeing that they were exactly the papers he had asked for, before his blood iced over: if Mina was not here, giving him the papers he’d asked for, she was loose in the building somewhere, not on a leash. _Do we have any clients in the office right now? Oh, God, please—_ he could only imagine what a client might think, with all that hardware in her face.

“Where is Miss Scott?” he asked, careful to deliver the question in conversational tones.

“She told me to give you these,” Kevin said, handing over the keys to his car with a winded shrug. “She left.”

“She _left?_ ”

“She just...walked off.” Kevin flicked his fingers as if mimicking a moth flying away. Kevin shrugged, watching Howard with concern and interest. Kevin had been in the office the day Mina appeared out of the blue, and his voiced curiosity had waned over time in direct proportion to how conversational Howard had been about the matter—not at all, to be frank—and that was probably all that was holding him back from asking more questions.

“It’s pouring outside,” Howard protested, accepting said keys and leaving them on his desk as he got up to go look for her. Kevin followed him all the way to the elevator. “Did she say anything? Miss Scott, I mean?”

Kevin shook his head. “Not really, Mr. Hamlin. I...I offered to let her wait in the lobby, at least until the rain stopped, or just get her some coffee, and she said, um...” Kevin flushed in embarrassment as he trailed off.

“Tell me what she said, Kevin.”

“She said you would prefer it if she didn’t, uh, ‘stink up the place and bother anyone,’ and she should just go.”

“I apologize for her rudeness,” Howard sighed, annoyed despite the fact he really didn't want her in his office, and despite the fact that, in very tactless terms, it was true. _But, you can’t just go around_ saying _that kind of thing_...

Kevin gave an unconvinced, worried nod as Howard closed the doors on the elevator.

She wasn’t in the garage. He didn’t see her lurking around the building either, which told Howard that she must have started walking alone, all the way back to his house. The last thing he needed was a sick house...well, guest was really stretching it of course, but Howard didn’t feel entirely right just leaving her to catch pneumonia, either. She had done exactly as he’d asked, with a lot of complaining, and why couldn’t she have just driven the car back to his house? _Why_ _did she have to be so damned difficult all the time?_

He came back up the elevator to get the keys he'd left in his office, and found Kevin hovering just outside the elevator landing, looking worried. Kevin followed Howard to his office.

“She really wasn’t that rude, sir. I kind of felt bad for her, actually...”

“Don’t,” Howard muttered uncharitably. _I wouldn’t feel bad for her if —_ he paused, and looked back at Kevin who was now staring at him in professional mortification and discomfort with a sigh. Kevin wasn’t a bleeding heart. “What do you mean, you kind of felt bad for her? Why?”

“She um, she looked like she was about to start crying.”

Howard stared at Kevin. Mina? _Cry?_ He could imagine her screaming and taking a swing at his head with a crowbar, he could not picture her crying.

She was still staying at his house. It was his paperwork she brought, safe and dry, and there wasn’t even so much as a scratch on his car. She even backed his BMW into a spot perfectly between the lines, at a bit of a distance from the other cars so it wasn’t in danger of somebody opening their door into it.

Howard groaned. 

“I’ll be right back. Keep working on this and I’ll be back later this afternoon to look it over.”

“Now, sir?”

“It’ll take her hours to walk back to the house."

“Is everything alright, Mr. Hamlin? Is she okay?”

“Everything’s fine,” he assured Kevin, as he left his office again. _Why the hell are my employees getting worried about her?_ Kevin again trailed him all the way to the elevator. “Miss Scott is fine, she's just...unreasonable, sometimes. She won't melt in the rain." Even if he wondered sometimes if she might. "And, Kevin...I'd appreciate it very much if I could have your discretion on this.”

Kevin looked shocked as Howard pressed the B2 button. His face disappeared between the elevator doors.

"Oh! Uh...yes, sir. Of course."

* * *

**

Albuquerque was all in gray and pelted by sheets of rain as Howard drove slowly, trying to find a drowned rat. He found her two blocks away, waiting at a crosswalk for the light to turn with an umbrella he recognized as his own. It had the logo of a law firm based out of in Tucson printed on it, and it was bright orange and green.

He pulled over and turned on the hazards, rolled down the window, and leaned over:

“ _Miss Scott!_ ”

She jumped and turned, and for a second he saw alarm pass over her face. He'd caught her off guard. It shut down immediately, knitting together until her expression was as cold as an ice wall. They both had to raise their voices slightly to be heard over the rain.

“What—”

“Get in the car.”

“ _No!_ ” 

“Don’t be ridiculous! Are you planning on walking the whole way back? Get in the car!”

“I’d rather walk.”

“At this point, I don’t care what you’d rather do,” he replied curtly. “Get in the car and I’ll drive you back to the house.”

“Why,” she snorted indelicately. “You made such a big deal about not wasting time before—”

“I need to talk to you. Get in the car.”

She relented after another second with a suspicious shake of her head, but climbed into the car and put the folded up, wet umbrella by her feet. He pulled away from the curb. It was much quieter with the window closed. She looked upset and maybe a little flushed, but Howard couldn't see incipient tears. 

“What did you—”

“I would very much appreciate it if you did not bring my employees into this. They don't need to know what's really going on.” And by _very much appreciate it_ , he really meant _I won't tolerate anything else_. He was only putting on such a pretense to give her the impression he was asking nicely and to avoid provoking a fight. His tone, however, carried the ultimatum.

“What are you talking about? I didn't say anything.”

“You told Kevin that _I’d rather you not stink up the place_.”

“Was I wrong?” she snorted incredulously.

“That’s not the point.”

“Well, what is the point, Mr. Hamlin?”

“The point is that if you say things like that, it gets attention. It upsets my staff. People notice. Based on what you've told me it would behoove you to keep a low profile, yourself." 

“I talked to one person!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t even come up the elevator, I just grabbed the one guy in the parking garage, asked him if he worked there, and gave him the box _you wanted!_ Okay?”

“I cannot have you embarrass me like that!”

He glanced at her long enough to see how she was staring at him. 

“Fine,” she grumbled at last, throwing up her hands in defeat. “Jesus fucking Christ, I apologize. I shouldn’t have said anything. I won’t do it again. I don't get why you care if your employees know I exist, but whatever, dude.” She leaned back in her seat and hissed something under her breath, looking away from him at the passing buildings with her arms crossed.

Howard turned off the main road, practically on autopilot.

“What was that?”

“I said: fuck this, I can’t wait until I can leave.”

Howard’s ears pricked up; blame his lawyer’s training for cluing in on word choice. She had spoken at dinner about wanting to feel safe and that that was why she had picked him, not that there was some impediment preventing her from leaving. There was a very big difference.

“How long are you going to be staying with me?” he asked, realizing as he said it that it was the first time such a subject had been directly broached between them.

“Who knows,” she grumbled. “I don't control it."

"What don't you control, Miss Scott?"

She glanced at him. He was listening so hard he almost missed his turn. Finally, he understood she was refusing to answer, and sighed.

"It isn't that I don't want my employees knowing you exist," he said carefully. "They already know you exist. You walked into my office and past their desks that first day. It's that when you say things like that it reflects poorly on me."

"Okay, but you don't like me, and you don't want me here. You've gone over the edge of a Land's End catalog if you think I owe it to you to pretend we're friends around your employees just so they like you."

How could he explain to her that on top of every other misfortune in his life he didn't need the added complication she represented dragging him down? Howard didn't mean her weird clothing choices or her affinity for sticking holes in herself and ink in her skin. He could buoy a shattered legal reputation but not with the weight of a personal condemnation added to it. Since he avoided talking about her, people didn't know anything. They glommed onto any crumb of insight. If all they knew was that he didn't want her there or people thought it was his fault that she was miserable, tongues would start to wag, and not in his favor.

Howard realized at that moment that he was _terrified_ she would speak in front of the wrong audience. It was bad enough, how she behaved around him, but if she were seen as an extension of himself, or somehow a victim...

What if Jimmy heard? He didn't doubt Jimmy wouldn't take advantage of a rumor like that, just to twist the knife. Even if he wouldn't, it just wasn't worth the risk. 

" _People_ know you're here," Howard finally told her. "It isn't that I care so much about whether my employees like me."

" _Excuse me?_ " she retorted, her disbelief thick and sharp. "What are you going on about? You just said your employees know I exist!"

"Not just my employees." Howard found himself shocked that she didn't realize that the sudden, surprise appearance of someone as...unique as she was would gain attention. "I was at a lunch meeting three days ago, and Montagne asked me about you."

There was another silence. Howard glanced at her; she was staring at him, an unfamiliar stonelike quality to her features behind a scowling face.

"Who the fuck is Montagne?!"

"A partner at another law firm. My point is that people are aware you're living with me. Whatever you say is most likely going to get back to them, somehow, and that reflects back on me. I cannot afford negative press right now."

"What the fuck," she whispered, in a small voice. He looked over at her. "People know I'm here? How? _Why?_ Did you tell them?"

"Albuquerque's a big city for New Mexico. It's the biggest city in the state, but it's smaller than El Paso, and the legal community here is tiny. People know me, even if my name is in the dirt. Anything that happens around me is going to get around. _Especially_ because my name is in the dirt."

She opened her mouth and closed it like a fish. She was chalk white. 

"Let me out of the car," she blurted out, violently.

"We're two blocks from the house _—_ "

"I need to walk. I need air."

"You can get air when you're back at the house."

She didn't fling herself out of the car, though when Howard stopped for a stop sign, he thought she might. She eyed the door handle, but kept still. She was jumpy. Mina let him drive her all the way up to the curb in front of his house, and then she started to get out.

"When I get home tonight, there's something I'd like to discuss with you." It had occurred to him somewhere in between one thought and the next; he couldn't ignore this problem because it wouldn't go away, now that she had let it out of the box he had to get ahead of the situation.

She snapped, "Did we not just have a discussion?"

"This is about something else."

"Ugh. Jesus. _Fine_." She jumped out before he could say anything, and shut the door, vanishing into the gray.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been to Albuquerque several times, as I used to live in Texas (I'm very fond of New Mexico in general, I definitely recommend visiting...I live for green chili omfg). East of the Mississippi River, the US is pretty well densely occupied (or just use I-35 in its entirety; gets you pretty much the same results). West of the Mississippi, until you hit the California coast, it is very much Not Occupied. Phoenix is the biggest city between LA and Dallas (but soooo flat), and it's like 70% of DFW's total population while Texas (as long as you're staying on or east of I-35, which runs from Dallas down to Laredo, through Austin and San Antonio...but it's a shitty road, at least as crap as I-80) is relatively densely populated. West Texas is a howling wasteland, and I do mean howling because it's fucking windy.
> 
> In 2005, the total population of ABQ's metro area (the largest in New Mexico) was was roughly 669,000; for comparison, El Paso was 739,000 for the same time (I hate El Paso), Las Vegas was 1,600,000, 3,300,000 for Phoenix, Tucson had a population of 782,000 (AZ's capital, Flagstaff, did not have 200,000 people living there), DFW: 4,630,000 souls, and for the sake of argument, Los Angeles in 2005 had like 12,000,000 people living there. Those are really the largest population centers you have until you hit the West Coast and places like Seattle, Portland, and the Cali coast. Montana's capital city didn't even have 100,000 people in it.
> 
> Meanwhile, Pittsburgh, which isn't that large for the East Coast, had like 1,720,000 people living in it in 2005, Philly had 5,300,000, and NYC had 18,100,000. Having also lived back east, there's a much denser network of small towns and population centers outside huge population centers. Even Raleigh, NC, had like 700,000 people in it in 2005 (so did Birmingham, AL, while Jackson, MI had 320,000...but who cares because Mississippi and Alabama are the taint of the US), and Atlanta had 4,000,000, and all of this in a much smaller and closer space than exists out west. (Chicago had 8,500,000 people.)
> 
> My point is that Howard is kind of stuck, and he probably should've just...moved somewhere else if he really wanted to get out of a closed circuit. If he gets his name dragged down he's really fucked.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Howard decides to be proactive, and gets Ellie talking while he gets the slightest bit reflective

Howard was actually feeling pretty good about things by the time he got home. He’d thought about it, formulated a plan of attack, and even accounted for the variable that was her inability to be civil (all he had to do was assume she would be difficult, and go from there). 

He came home to find Mina sitting on the couch playing her _video games_ again. He didn’t see the appeal of sitting on a couch living vicariously through a white haired kid in a red leather coat that fought monsters with a sword, but she was clearly very attached. He waited until she finally paused and came into the kitchen and got a cup out of the cabinet. She probably knew where things were in his kitchen better than he did by now. 

“Do you have a minute?” he asked, as she crossed the space to the refrigerator water dipsenser.

She looked at him with open skepticism, pushing the cup against the lever until water poured out, and shrugged.

“Was that a yes?”

Still, she didn’t say anything as her cup filled. When it was full she took a sip of water, still looking at him.

“I was thinking: it might be good, if people are aware you’re here...it might do some good if they could meet you.”

She said nothing. 

“I’m looking for feedback here.”

She pointed at him with the rest of her fingers curled around her mug, her other hand in her pocket.

“Not a chance in Hell.” She walked out of the kitchen.

“Miss Scott,” he called after her. “The conversation isn’t over.”

“Yes it i-is,” she shot back in singsong.

“I was wondering if you might like to have dinner with me this evening.”

“Haven’t we had dinner together for the past—”

“I meant going out to eat. There’s a place called the Indigo Crow that I enjoy.”

“Do you want to be seen in public with me is the real question,” she snorted in amusement as she sat down on his couch. 

“Put on the dress you were wearing that first day; I already made the reservations tonight for seven.”

“Well that was presumptuous of you.”

“Please, Miss Scott. As a favor to me.”

She sat up and twisted around and looked at him, almost blankly. She was silent as she stared, the gears turning in her head.

“At the very least, you won't have to cook. You can relax tonight.”

She squinted at him.

“I’m not taking out the piercings.”

“You’re well-spoken beneath them,” he reasoned. “Anyone who cannot see past them prioritizes appearance more than substance.”

She snorted. “I see how you look at them.”

“I do wonder why anyone would choose to have so many holes in their face. I don’t find them appealing, but I don't think you're an idiot for having them."

“Good thing I don’t care what turns you on. I wonder why you choose to have such a stick up your ass. I don’t find that appealing.”

“ _Miss Scott_.”

She didn’t say anything, and flopped back around. He was talking to the back of her head, but she hadn’t un-paused her video game yet or was doing much of anything that he could hear either, so he guessed he still had her attention.

“Be ready to go thirty minutes before.”

“That’s in like forty-five minutes.”

“So hurry up.”

She hesitated, then with a sigh, got up and started towards her Playstation.

“I’ll take care of that,” he said. “Just go on and get dressed.”

Again, she appeared tolerant if frosty and immensely suspicious—but she did as he asked.

* * *

*

All told, she looked very much like she had that very first day, except her hair was a little grown out. 

“Why are we stopping at your office,” she asked, frowning when he pulled into the garage. He wanted to switch out the cars before going over to the Indigo Crow.

“The BMW’s more fun to drive." It was better for a night out, basically. He wanted to have fun, too. This was as much a chance for himself to unwind and reward himself for hard work as it was to, well, try and get her talking. He wanted to appear at ease. The Chrysler would be fine at his office.

She eyed him again, warily.

“Have you ever been to a nice restaurant before?” he asked, as they both got into the Beamer.

“Yes.”

“Alright...where was it?”

“Are you talking locally, or in general?”

“Does that mean you do or do not know how to behave—”

“Do you or do you _not_ know how not to behave like a condescending douchebag?”

 _Patience, Howard_. “It was an honest question, Miss Scott.”

“Honesty, again? I answered your question, it was your follow up question that honestly sucked.”

“Fine,” he sighed. “I guess we’ll just have to play it by ear and find out.”

She gave a sort of nonplussed, noncommittal hum. 

Corrales was a suburb in the northwest of Albuquerque, and in the twilight the desert was all in subdued grey-browns and sage greens. The ground was dark but the sky stretched overhead in pastel pink and dark gray, a hint of blue-white from the west contrasting with the dark in the east. It was colorful in a muted way. His love of desert scenery had been...on the more positive end of what prevented Howard from taking a position anywhere else.

Well, that and an intuition that if he took a job back east, he would spend hours of his life shoveling snow off a sidewalk.

It was true that Albuquerque was usually sunny; it was definitely not always the warmest city, but neither was it New England. Howard had gone to law school in Connecticut, and spent the entire time in Hartford living the dream and freezing his ass off. New England was all in grays and whites in winter, and when it was over he couldn’t wait to get back to the desert.

“Where are you from?” he asked, breaking the silence.

“Not here."

“I’m just trying to make friendly conversation, Miss Scott.”

“You have two modes of actively attempting to make conversation with me, Mr. Hamlin: intelligence-gathering and bitching. We’ve never had just a friendly conversation.”

“Well, I’d like to change that.”

“You don’t need to know where I’m from.”

"I’d like to know where you’re from. How’s that?”

“ _How is it?_ It sounds like you’re taking shots in the dark and seeing what sticks. Don’t act like it’s now my job to reward you for taking an interest. You’re trying to make me think this is some nice thing you’re doing for altruistic reasons, and it’s not. You even said you’re taking me out so people see me. So no, I’m not telling you a goddamn thing.”

Howard was dead silent for several seconds before he made his decision..

“I am trying to be proactive and get ahead of any nasty rumors,” he said at last, chagrined. “Rumors I’m concerned got kicked up like dust today, by you, whether you believe me or not. And _with your cooperation,_ I hope to avoid putting another mark on my name. I don't know if you're aware of it, but my legal firm is in serious trouble.

“I’m worried about what you want, and where you got the information you say you know. I’m worried about myself, and about the firm. I _have_ to rebuild HHM’s reputation.” He had to. It was his father’s firm, and Chuck’s. It was their legacy which he’d been left to keep in trust. Howard’s failures on personal and professional levels had been its downfall, and that fact ate at him until he didn’t know what to do with himself but wake up every day and brush his teeth. It was up to him to fix it, a weight that sat heavy on his chest. “I’m _dragging you out in public_ because I’d rather anyone who might ask questions think I don’t have anything to hide. I have to take that risk in spite of the fact that you insisting on dressing the way you do is going to reflect badly on me regardless. All that junk in your face just looks trashy, and low-rent.”

...No reaction.

“Say something,” he pressed, a bit sharply.

Her face twitched violently.

“There is so much to unpack there that I’m not even going to unload the car.”

“I don’t know anything about you, other than, well...the obvious.”

“What is obvious to you is decidedly _un_ obvious to me. Do tell.”

“You enjoy cooking,” he started. “You also enjoy sitting in front of the television and playing video games, and…” He trailed off. “Piercings and tattoos.”

“No further insights, counselor?”

“Where are you from?”

She huffed. “How will knowing _that_ help you?”

“I can’t talk about someone I don’t know anything about. People are curious. No one is going to take me seriously if all I can say is that you're an adult who sits on my couch and plays video games all day.”

“Sounds like a personal problem.”

Howard’s frustration soared. “ _Please_ , Mina.”

It felt very strange forcing her given name out of his mouth, and when he did, it sounded unnatural to his ears. He called her Miss Scott because it was distancing, and they did not have anything more than a superficial arrangement predicated on his capitulation to her criminal behavior.

“Just...give me something to work with. Please. I would like to be able to say something with more significance than a list of hobbies.”

She was quiet for close to two whole minutes, her expression tight and closed. Howard thought he'd lost the entire bid until she spoke up again.

“Well...I suppose it wouldn’t be believable anyway, if you kept calling me Miss Scott. I guess I’ll have to try and call you Howard in public, then.”

He almost flinched. Not once had Mina ever used his given name, either.

“I’m from Dallas,” she sighed. “Well, I grew up there, but I haven’t lived there for more than a decade. Lived a bunch of places since then. I like to read, although I’m picky about fiction. Mostly I like soft science fiction and fantasy. I prefer non-fiction. I can't stand romcoms in book or movie forms, unless it's _Bridget Jones's Diary_ , but that didn't age super well, I'll say that.

"History. I don't like your collection much, it's—it's a problem, you know, that up until the 90's much historical critique was...very steeped in a white, Christian lens. It's not a you and your tastes problem, it's a historiographical problem endemic to the environment that produced it that I'm sure I could hammer something to say out of it, but I'm sure somebody else has bothered to write that thesis and anyway academia likes to nitpick in defense of tenure the way kids online correct grammar. I love history, and art. Museums. Libraries. I enjoy travel. I’ve been to...well, several countries, and most of the states in the continuous US. Alaska, too. English is my first language, but not my only language.

“This is not the first time I’ve been to Albuquerque."

“Dallas, Texas? ” He found himself very surprised. She didn’t have a shred of accent, and in his experience people from Texas were proud to tell you whether or not you asked. She didn’t seem very _Texan_ to him.

“Mm-hmm.”

“When were you in Albuquerque before?”

“Passing through,” she said. “We vacationed up in Taos when I was a kid. I learned to ski up there.”

“Your parents had to have been well off to go skiing on vacation.”

“Yes,” she admitted after a moment, bluntly. “It wasn’t until later in life that I had any real concept of what that meant, but, yes.”

“Did something happen to them that you’re not with them, in Dallas?”

“Oh, no: they’re fine. My mother’s living out her pastoral fantasies on four hundred acres somewhere outside of Dallas. Agriculture’s not a wildly profitable small-scale enterprise these days, but then, all she's doing is putting on the cute little outfit to collect eggs and play-pretend on her little hobby farm, while farmers are losing their land to corporations, like Marie Antoinette at _Hameau de la Reine_.” She chuckled unpleasantly. "Marie Antoinette never really said _Let them eat cake_. Mom would."

“Do they know you’re in Albuquerque?”

“Fuck, no. We don’t talk. I moved literally across the country, changed my name, and keep them in the dark. They don’t know what I do or where I live. Apparently, this causes them much angst, from what my brother tells me. Sucks to suck.”

Howard couldn't help it: “ _Why?_ ”

“Because I wanted to.”

“You moved away, changed your name, and cut your parents out of your life— _why?_ That’s an incredibly...extreme response.”

Howard could not understand it. His father would never have allowed Howard to just vanish, and if he tried, Howard would’ve woken up one day to a private eye banging on his door. Dad’s expectations had been clear from the outset: he expected Howard to go to law school, then to come back after law school and add another H to the firm, end of story. His father would've even put an end to law school in Connecticut if not for the intervention of his mother. The idea of simply vanishing into the night, leaving everyone and everything behind, and becoming someone else was just...unthinkable to him.

It was closer to something Jimmy might have done, but...also, that comparison didn’t bear out in his mind. She wasn’t Jimmy; most of all, she didn’t have his endless energy, and this didn’t sound like she was trying to sell him something. It wasn't news to him that Mina was fiercely opinionated and would fight about it if she didn't like something, it didn't explain anything about why she was here, but Howard rode it out; in a real sense, he was only collecting details by going over the same information: it was basically the same theory as cross-examination. The idea was to go over an issue multiple times, asking slightly different questions every time to provoke new facets to come to light.

“Mina Scott isn’t your real name?”

“I legally changed my name, so Mina Scott is my ‘real name.’ Well, Wilhel _mina_ Scott, like the annoying chick in _Temple of Doom_. Mina’s just the nickname. It isn’t the one I was born with, though.” He could hear her grin, even with his eyes on the road. “And I won’t tell you what it was. Wouldn’t do you any good anyway.”

“Why did you do all of that?”

"What do you mean, why?"

"Why would you go to such extremes to cut your parents out of your life?" He'd asked her the same question at least three times by now.

“Our relationship was...it was _always_ strained, but it improved after I left home. Then it just...well, I don't have any patience for bullshit left. My home life as a kid was...well, we had money, yes, dad makes damn good money, but I was always made to feel unwelcome there, and on top of that, the one who didn't fit in with them. They used to do stupid stuff like call me _the alien_ , and laugh about it, and then blow me off if I didn’t laugh along with them. They felt justified in alienating me and expected me to share that perspective. They would always act like I was supposed to feel grateful for the attention they were so kind as to bestow on me, in spite of everything I was. They wanted a relationship with me on their terms, and only on their terms. There's no mutual respect, in that sense.

"On top of that...my mother liked to tell me that she didn't withhold affection when I did anything she didn't approve of. Problem with that is that's exactly what she did, but arguably worse because she decided that instead of just ignoring me she was going to make fun of me until she got her way.

“That’s not kindness. That’s self-gratification.

“Long story short,” Mina sighed. “They have always wanted something from me that I can't and won’t give, and it took me a long time to realize that niceness is not the same as kindness. You can be as nice as you want, but that doesn’t make something you’re doing any less wrong. Kindness is something different. So...I closed that door.”

“It must have been difficult.”

“Difficult?”

“Cutting contact...going off on your own.” It sounded terrifying to Howard, even at his age.

She shrugged. “Wasn’t like they were paying any of my bills, so...It was easy. And it wasn't like they were offering; they'd have let me freeze to death on the streets after I hit 18. The emotional distance was already there, the rest is just window dressing. They were just shocked I wasn't there to gratify them when they felt like picking me up off the shelf to play with and put back. My mother, anyway. My dad's not so off in la-la land, but they're a package deal.”

It blew his mind. To be capable of such drastic, methodical action, a person had to be...well, capable of something like...

“Instead you’ve turned to blackmail to make ends meet. Possibly other criminal activities.”

“Ah-ha...not quite,” she laughed, again with that faraway self-deprecating tone. “This was an act of desperation. I fucked up royally to end up here.”

“ _How?_ ”

“You know how Bugs Bunny said he should’ve taken a left turn at Albuquerque?”

“Yes?”

“Well, I took a left turn at Albuquerque.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The thing about this fic that I'm kind of discovering as I'm writing it is that it's heavy on character perspective. Howard is kind of a 1.5 dimension figure in BCS, and essentially I'm trying to develop his character while...not developing his character, if that makes sense.
> 
> No, this isn't a self-insert. Details have been cribbed and changed and altered and dialed to 11 for my personal entertainment, on top of which I have not actually cut off all contact with my family, although that one year I refused to talk to them finally knocked it through their skulls that my boundaries are not to be fucked with without consequences.
> 
> Also if you've read another one of my stories some of the ocs details are...reminiscent. first of all its my story I do what I want, second of all it's a very different story so things will happen very differently, third of all no they're not the same character.


End file.
